Russia to spend over $30 billion in nuclear energy development

Russia will expend one trillion rubles ($31.3 billion) to develop its nuclear power industry through to 2015. Russia’s next-generation nuclear power plants will have an improved safety design, as well as an improved water desalination system.

“Nuclear security and nuclear power production safety should
be upgraded with the aid of new technological solutions,” the
director of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s department for security
and disarmament Mikhail Ulyanov, said on Wednesdayas, as quoted by
Itar-Tass.

A new generation of Russian nuclear power plants will include
such safety features as double reactor containment, passive heat
removal systems, and specialized cooling units, he said.

According to Ulyanov, Russia has started designing the reactors
that not only generate electric power, but also desalinate water.
Plants with such reactors may potentially become “instruments of
development for many countries,” the official believes.

Ulyanov’s comments came amid discussions on nuclear
nonproliferation, and in connection with Geneva Non-Proliferation
Treaty (NPT) talks, in which Russia is participating.

The next major review of the 1970 Treaty is scheduled for 2015,
with preparatory session now taking place. The NPT treaty has been
signed by 190 countries.